Young Justice: End Game
by Wackydog
Summary: This is a Young Justice story, that I would actually like some OC's for. This is the first chapter which is going to be much shorter than the next one's will be, because I'd like to focus on the OC's that may get submitted. Anyway's here is the forum link, if you'd like to be in this story: /forum/Young Justice OCs needed for story/116983/ OC sign up's are due by the 1st of Sept.
1. Chapter 1

The air was thick with tension, as everyone on The Team, had been called in for a special meeting. There were sweaty brows, and dry throats, everyone anticipating what the news could possibly be. A few of the League members had shown up, for the occassion. Batman, Superman, and The Flash were among them. Superman stepped foward, and though he was six feet, and three inches, in this moment he seemed much larger. His blue eyes, locked on to everyone in the room. "I'm glad you could all be here, tonight. I'll try to be brief, with what we have to say." "As all of you know The Justice League was created as a belief in good, a higher calling, to help the world, rather than just confining ourselves to selected cities. With our appearance being that of a public one, The Team, all of you, have been the covert arm of the League. It is something you have all done well in, and should feel proud of. That's why after general consensus, we've decided to expand The Team." Superman told them, and was then interjected by Nightwing saying "Like with more members?" "Well yes, there is that too, but what I meant was, that while you all do a good job of handling your problems, and missions, The League believes it would be best, if other locations were covered, beyond just Happy Harbor, allowing for a faster response, to emergencies in the area. For the moment this is based in the United States. Nightwing, since you're already the leader here, your team would over see, the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennslyvania, and Connecticut. The NorthEastern region. Other team's would cover for other regions." Superman was able to sense the immediate question and answered it. "If something out of the U.S. happens, select members who are best fit to answer the problem will be chosen from each team." "The locations have already been set, this is for the greater good."

There was a pause, before Superboy was the one to speak. "So just like that? Just like that we're being split up?...Don't get me wrong, I, I understand the reason, and I can even agree with it. But this,..this is home, it's family." There were murmurs and general nods of agreement with Connor's words. "And what about me? Do I stay here where I was born? Do I go to Metropolis? Or am I being sent to Smallville perhaps?" "Tch, I don't like agreeing with him, but steel boy has a point, if we're being split up, how is it happening? I mean, I'm from Atlantis, not really a state." Lagon said, adding his voice into the mix, and showing support for Superboy. Batman stepped forward to adress the problem. "Before the Team, you were side kicks, now you have become full fledged heroes. As for how you're being split up, a League Member will be in each region of the U.S. acting as a guiding eate. Superman here, will be overseeing the NorthEastern region. Superboy you asked where you would be, well that is your region."

To say that everyone was on board for the plan would have been lie. Like Superboy, most of them were nervous, and upset about leaving those who had become a family to them. However The League had spoken, and that was the end of it. What followed next, was finding out what region they would be assigned to. There were exchanges of hugs and heartfelt promises to keep in touch, between those who were going to be in different areas. Those still in school, had also learned that any paperwork that was needed had already been filled out, in the case that they had to transfer. "Take care of yourself" Nightwing said to Impulse who was the last one to leave, rather ironic given his status as the fastest member. "No worries, I'll keep in touch." Impulse said, raising his fist for a bump, which Nightwing returned to him. It was just him, Superboy, Miss Martian, and Lagon left at the base. For once, a man of so many words, and Nightwing found himself speechless. The Sanctuary looked a lot bigger, larger than he had remembered during his first visit to it. "So...what now?" M'gann asked the others. "I'm going to bed." Connor replied curtly. Nightwing in response shrugged, and walked off, leaving M'gann with Lagon.

There was darkness, and in that darkness the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard. There was only a single light, alone in the shadows, and at which a man stood. The footsteps were drawing closer, and closer. Hugo Strange was not an easy man to frighten, and yet at this moment he was feeling fear, he was feeling his blood turn cold. Finally the approach was halted, and although he could not look upon, the one in front of him, Strange was able to make out a pair of red eyes, that were higher up than his own. "I have done as you've asked of me. I trust that my end of the bargain will be upheld?" Strange asked trying his best to keep a clear and calm voice. For a moment there was silence, and then a voice, or rather a chorus of voices, like a collective of people all whispering at the same time, occured. "Of course, Professor, your...reward will come in due time."


	2. The V Team

(Well I guess this could be thought of as the first real chapter. I would like to thank all of the entries, I had a difficult time choosing, especially since I wanted to keep the genders balanced out. Now to name those who made the cut, Thomas Jackson made by Mr. Wartburg, Jason Law, made by Reven228, Tay Stevens, made by toonwriter, Alicia Tinkov, made by STicker55, Morgan'auli, by AvarielArcher, Leeann Harridge by The Missing Castle, Steve from the crimson nutcase, and Strix, and M are mine. This is a non-profit story, I do not own or am in anyway affiliated with Young Justice, or DC Comics as a whole, all rights go to their respective owners.)

Five months had passed since the Justice League had made the choice to expand The Team into other territories of the United States, as a way of being able to react to various problems at a faster rate. The Midwestern base had reached completion. The location of the base was in the city of Vadak. Unlike the League's previous attempts, this team had a selection ahead of time, of those that the League felt would work best together. The League had kept a close eye on their progress as individuals, before making their choices, along with who would be the leader of the team. The base had two parts to it. A front, which was an abandoned shipping yard, filled with many old crates, and then the actual base that was located underground. On site there were currently two people, one of them a Justice League member, the other one of the one's chosen to be a member of the Midwestern States Team. The young man ran a hand through his neck length dark brown hair, as he waited for Superman to finish up with the sweep of the base. He was in the living room area, which was akin to being a funhouse, almost. The floor was in all sense a giant feather pillow, that was black in color. The room had four cinema sized television screens, with every video game console, and game available. The living room had a large sofa, that could be pulled out into a bed. It was easily several times the size of a King Sized bed, along with having multiple recliners, and a smaller couch. There were also four tables in the living room. After waiting for a few moments Superman came back into the room. "Alright everything's all clear." Superman said, and then his expression became more relaxed. "Thomas, the League chose you to lead this outfit, we're counting on you. I know that sometimes it can get difficult, but we believe in you, and for the team to work you have to believe in yourself too." Thomas hesitated for a moment, not used to speaking to someone of Superman's status. "I will sir." He said at first, as Superman raised an eyebrow. "I mean I do, I do believe in myself." Superman smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know you'll do great, I have to get back to the Watchtower now, your other team members will be arriving shortly." Superman walked out of the living room, and as he did so, his body was engulfed in light, as he was teleported back to the Watchtower.

Through the shipping yard, there walked ten individuals. One of them an adult man, and the others were all teenagers. "Step up, now it's not that much further." The man known as John Stewart said as he lead the young adults. He lead them to a dark blue crate labeled 61998. "Alright now before we go in, there are a number of security protocols in place. Now obviously The League doesn't endorse killing, but in the event of someone trying to break in, an energy beam that neutralizes gravity particles around their bodies would activate, leaving them trapped in a force field." John explained to the group. "You know I was half expecting the laser part to go more, "And if someone tries busting in here, the death laser shall wipe them from the Earth!" A younger African American teen said to the group. "Lasers don't wipe people out, they turn them into fine barbeque, speaking of which I could go for some." Another of the group responded, this one a taller, black haired young man. "That's enough, now pay attention." John said, his time in the Marine Corps showing through in his gruffness. "Now all of you form a line, we're going to do this as smoothly as possible." He told them, and it was clear, that his words were an order. John then approached the crate, and raised up a panel. It performed, a hand, and eye print scan. Then he spoke into a voice recognition box. "Green Lantern 11972" He said, as a green light appeared confirming his authorization to enter. He then punched in a code, to gain full access. A girl from the group an Atlantean spoke up, on a question she had. "Sir, I don't mean to question The League, but well a hand print scanner could leave behind residue, which could um be bypassed." She pointed out to him. "That's an excellent observation, however we've handled that, after every scan is complete, a chemical cleansing occurs, destroying all evidence of the fingerprints in question. Don't worry we've got you covered." He said to her. "Alright everyone come up one at a time, and I'll walk all of you through the process, of getting aquatinted with the system." He told them, as the first of them stepped forward. The process in total took about twenty minuets to get complete, and then the entire front of the crate slide upwards, and inside it looked like just an empty crate. "Step inside." John told them, as they all went in, and the front of the crate slid down. Everyone was engulfed in a bright light, as they were teleported to the base.

Having heard the others arrive, Thomas stood at attention, to greet them, and the den mother of the group. "Mr. Bale I am a huge fan of yours." The tall, black haired teen said,

with a light laugh. Green Lantern took over from there. "Everyone this is Thomas Jackson, he's going to be acting as your team's leader, all of you make your introductions." He ordered to them. The younger black, boy was the first one to step up. "I'm Tay Stevens, some folks call me Supah T, but I don't really mind either way, even just T is fine." He said to Thomas. The taller black haired young man went next. "Name's Emerald, well codename, don't let the joke's fool you, I don't give out my real name unless I'm pretty close to someone." The one to go next was a lightly tanned girl, with curly dark brown hair. "Alicia Tinkov, no alias." She said to him. Then another girl went next, this one having white, not Caucasian white skin with a slight gray tinge to it. "Strix." She said, and left it at that. The next girl to go was far more exuberant, with a ponytail of dark red hair. "I'm Leeann Harridge! You can call me Lee though." She said with a tone of happiness. The Atlantean girl was the one to go next. "It's nice to make your acquaintance, my name is Morgan'auli." She said to him "Shade, Steven, either is fine with me." A blonde haired, boy said. The girl who went next introduced herself as Kate, and the final one was a red haired boy who said he was M. "Are you a Death Note character?" Emerald asked him. "He doesn't have the notebook." Tay said and they two of them shared a laugh. Thomas looked the entire group over, taking all of them in. "I have to say that I'm used to working alone, I'm not going to sugar coat that. I imagine that most of you are as well. However as the leader of this team, it is my promise, that I will do my best to to be an effective one." He told them. "I would like to know however what everyone is capable of, your powers. As a rule of fairness I will go first. I am a pyrokinetic, who is in peak condition, this here;" Thomas said holding up his bat, "is my special bat, made out of prometheum." "Seems a tad crude for a hero." Tay said to him. "Well start with you, what are your abilities?" Thomas asked him. "I can fly, and well I can manipulate a form of energy, I don't have full mastery of it yet, but I can fire it off from my body, or surround myself in a shielf of it, and act like a missile, I have super human strength, I'm actually not sure how much I can lift, I mean cars are fine, though I did have to strain a bit one time, to lift a tractor, the heavy duty kind, not the small farm owned one's. I can also filter energy through my eyes, into either heat or an ice like beam." Tay explained to him. Leeann seemed to be getting a tad excited to go next, and Thomas did not even need to ask her. "I'm a shape shifter!" She said proudly. "Like no way!" Emerald said to her, mimicking her voice, and earning him a glare from the girl. "Calm down both of you." Thomas said, stepping into his leader role. He then allowed the rest of them to say what they could do as well. As they went, he learned that Alicia was capable of telekinesis, and creating telepathic projections. Shade was capable of defying gravity, and passing through solid objects. Morgan as an Atlantean had above human strength, as per her Atlantean heritage, along with some magical abilities, and hydrokinesis. Emerald's power was the ability to generate, and then manipulate crystals, similiar to emeralds. Strix had Owl like super powers. M was capable of plasma manipulation of all forms, as well as super strength, and flight. Kate who had went last was capable of healing, mind reading, and possibly control, along with aura reading. "Alright,...ah I am still not used to this leader thing, hmm let's hit the training room. Is that okay Mr. Stewart?" John told Thomas that it was his call, and the rest of the team seemed happy to do so, though some of them had very impassive faces.

The inside of the training room was akin to stepping into a large black cube. "Alright we'll work solo first, one round of physical combat, and then another of stealth combat, I hope that we can get a feel for the styles, everyone brings to the plate." He said, and would've continued except for Emerald interrupted with "I'd like some food brought to the plate." Thomas ignored the remark, and volunteered to go first, loading up a fight program, on the standard of 20 thugs, five of them armored, and five of them with knives. Thomas's fighting style was like his personality, there was control to it, he seemed to forgo fancy techniques, in favor of bone breaking, and quick takedowns. He decided to forgo his bat, in favor of not causing too much harm, that may have killed his opponents. Even if they were not real people. A mix of Hapkido, and Kick Boxing were the closest to any style that could be pinpointed from his techniques, as he fought. A thug swung at Thomas who sidestepped, chopped him in the throat, and then snapped his arm. Another thug rushing forward, was met with his elbow, and then grabbed, and had his kneecap broken with a hard kick. He used his pyrokiesis, to do things such as temporarily blind his enemies, or cause minor burns, which he would then follow up with hard attacks, such as grabbing a thug, and then ramming his knee into his midsection, before elbowing him in the back of the head. When the battle was over, Thomas signed out, and allowed the next person to go and Strix stepped up first, to the disappointment of both Tay, and Emerald, who had been itching to go, and kind of show off. When Strix fought, her fighting style had less power moves, but more flow, and grace to it. This was somewhat countered by the fact that she did have super strength. While she fought, Emerald, and Tay flipped a coin to see who should go next. It came up tails for Tay, who gave a fist pump in his excitement. Strix's fight continued, as she dodged a knife swipe, and then roundhouse kicked the thug, in the midsection, before spinning to bring the back of her heel into his head. "Nicely done." Thomas said to her, as she existed the simulation, and Tay went up. Tay did not have much of a style, he was the youngest member, and had been used to letting his power do the talking. He was more of a brawler type, with sparing amounts of blasting the thugs with energy beams. As Tay continued, an alert sounded through out the tower, the stimulation was shut down at that point. "Suit up, and move out." Green Lantern ordered to them. The group of teenagers did as instructed, some of them were already in their hero gear, and others just had to throw them on.

Thomas lead the team to the living room, and grabbed a gray remote with a single button. "I seriously doubt this is a time to watch TV." Alicia said in a deadpan manner to their chosen leader. Thomas pressed the button, causing a wall to slide up, and revealing a very advanced looking aircraft. It was black in color, with some blue lines. "While I do take responsibility as leader, I will admit, that I'm not the absolute best driver, is anyone here, experienced behind the wheel, the controls work like a video game." "Uh, yeah, I think I can do it." Shade said speaking up to the group. "So are we just rushing in blind? Or does anyone here have a clue of what we're up against?" Emerald asked the group, as everyone boarded the plane. Thomas opened a compartment and gave everyone ear pieces, as well as activating, a radio on a watch given by Superman. In the slums, there had been sightings of monstrous people, they were to investigate, and if need be, neutralize any threats in the area. "Are they people who look like monsters? Or monsters that look like people?" Tay asked the group. "The slums of this city were once a test site, for biological, and chemical weapons, developed by the military, it's possible the residue chemicals, and radiation would have caused deformities, and other irregularities to pop up." Kate explained to him. "So boss man what's the plan of attack?" Emerald asked him. "The heaviest place of activity was reported around the Stane Hospital, since Tay and M have the most raw power, they will stay outside and act as a perimeter, Strix I understand that you have the ability to operate in total darkness, so you'll be going in the basement first, there's no power there, but according to your abilities, that should not prove to be a problem for you. Kate, you stick with Morgan, go in through the East entrance it's near the pumps so your water ability will be strongest near there, in case something goes wrong, and then Leeann, and Alicia will be with me." Thomas explained to them. "Oh and just one more thing, try not to hurt them too much." For a moment the rest of the team believed him to be joking. "I'm not exactly the most righteous person." Alicia told him. "Look these monsters, are people, and it seems that they have a few hours, and then die of a heart attack, we need to either get a blood sample, or if possible knock one out, and take it to study on, so we can find a cure, and if we can isolate what chemicals are in their blood, we may be able to track down the source." The plane landed atop the cracked building of a rundown convient store, and then went into stealth mode. "Alright team, let's do this." Thomas told them, as their first mission began.

(Alright now for some epilogue, when writing this, I do want to give everyone some lime light, so for anyone who feels snubbed, don't worry, I intend to spread out, and give everyone a fair amount of time. Now one of the things I wanted to do, was avoid what looks cool in a fight, in favor of allowing the fighting styles to show their personalities, such as Thomas being more serious, and therefore with his character, I made his combat direct, and overwhelming, forgoing any fancy techniques, in favor of things like arm breaks, and hip tosses.)


	3. Into the Den

(So it occurred to me, that I forgot to put in where Emerald and Shade were in the plan, so no worries, I caught the mistake, and the two of them do have their part in this.)

The front of the hospital, it's appearance was a far cry from a place that had once been utilized in saving the lives of others. Thomas took point, with Alicia, and Leeann following close behind him. The heavy, dark, wooden door was jammed shut. Thomas at first rammed his shoulder into it, causing it to crack, and tear at the top, but it only budged slightly. Since that idea had failed, he instead used his bat, and then smashed a hole into the wood of the door. From this point, he was able to get his arm through the created hole, and unlock the door. The only light was the sunlight coming in through the broken, and haphazardly, boarded up windows. The checkered black and white, floor, and dirty white walls, were covered in dried blood, and in some areas such as some of the corners, mold. The reception desk was destroyed, a large chunk of it missing, and the three young heroes could see, a severed leg, the flesh of which was rotting, and infested with maggots. Despite the fact that it was a long shot, Thomas turned on the switch located behind the desk, and to everyone's surprise it worked.

"Well that obviously makes perfect sense. I mean it's normal for broken down buildings, that smell like piss, and would have no way of paying the electric bill to keep the power on, to have power." Alicia noted, in a caustic tone. "I think it's sort of cool, this place would make a fun haunted house." Leeann said, being much more, chipper about the situation. "Or someone's using a power source, located somewhere in the hospital." Thomas said to the two girls. "We should search for clues in this area, before moving on." He told them.

"Hey, this is of mild interest. In other words get over here." Alicia said to her two partners. Leeann skipped over, while Thomas simply walked, as they both went to see what Alicia had found. "Um, it's blood?" Leeann asked the other girl. Alicia for a moment made an expression that clearly said duh, before continuing on to explain. "Well yes, but it's not normal, here watch this." Alicia told them, as she then took a piece of broken tile from the floor, and jabbed at the blood with it. On a near instant level, the blood hardened, and then developed spikes to stab at the attacking piece of floor tile. "Cool!" Leeann said, with a slight laugh at the entire display, while Thomas merely cocked an eyebrow. "Well...that's definitely something, good find, Alicia, I'll take a sample for us to take back to the base." He told her, as he took out a vial, in order to get a sample of the unusual blood that was on the ground. "I'll get a sample, of some of the mold too, it could be regular mold, but I don't want like leaving things to wonder." Thomas told them, as he took a sample of the mold as well. "So now we just move through, and check every patient room in the area, as we go?" Alicia asked him. "Precisely" Thomas answered to her, as they set out to do just that.

The area that Shade, and Emerald had been assigned to was perhaps the most important one. They had been placed in the archives section of the hospital, employee records, patient records, anything, and everything that had a record on file in the old hospital, assuming it had not been stolen or destroyed could be found in the area that they were in. The appearance of it was almost like a small library, with multiple shelves filled with books, along with rusted, filing cabinets, and a large, metal desk with a cluttered mess of papers upon it. The two of them were surprised when the lights suddenly flickered on. "I didn't touch anything." Emerald quickly stated, and looked over at Shade. "I,..I didn't either." Shade said in reply to the other boy. "Well I'm not sure about you, but I'm going to see if I can locate a blueprint map, I don't feel like getting lost in here." Emerald stated, as he opened a filing cabinet, and began to search through. Shade decided to help him, with his search, and began to look on the shelves for anything of use. "Let me know if you find anything useful or interesting." Emerald said as he continued to go through files. Shade nodded, as he continued to look on the shelves, he had begun to make a pile of what seemed interesting to him.

"Aha!" Emerald said with triumph as he located a blueprint of the hospital, and turned around to show his find, to Shade, who himself was holding a small laptop, it was powered on, but protected, so Shade was unable to get on. "Hold on little bro, I might be able to gain access." Emerald said, taking a hold of the computer, and setting it on the desk. Emerald got into a command prompt and entered A30nDy9!_K1Lh3S5. The laptop responded with an access denied screen. This caused him to grumble somewhat, and try a new method. This time, Emerald backtracked the information source, and then overwrote it, along with entering B1r99J!/c.*7f/H/-YfJ_019BmU6v. The screen after this became green, and read "Access Granted." Emerald smirked at his handiwork, and then both he and Shade watched what the computer had to show them. It was a video, a classified one, that was shot with a cheap camcorder. It showed many people, they looked homeless, and even more so they all appeared to have been starved. All of the people were men, and all of them shirtless with their ribs showing due to lack of nourishment.

"This is the final test of Project M99, our previous efforts have ended in failure, but thanks to our new benefactor in Professor Milo, we believe that his research will help us create, stronger, healthier humans, a bright future for everyone no matter how sickly or weak they may be." The voice did speak English, but the accent was hard to pin down, on exactly what it was. The screen cut to the test subjects being lead into a large room, where the doctors would be able to observe them behind a two way mirror. The room was gassed, and what happened next, was not good. The subjects began to scream in pain, causing the doctors to become frightened, and many of them began to try and shut the experiment down, which is when things went from bad to worse, as one of the doctors opened fire, having revealed a hidden pistol, and began to slaughter the others. The sociopathic doctor, then escaped down the hall, as a deformed, but hulking arm busted through the two way mirror. The camcorder appeared to short out after this.

The smell of wet, mold, and decaying flesh, was abundant within the darkness, that Strix was in. It was true, that being in the dark, was not a problem for her. Strix had night vision, along with enhanced hearing, and echolocation. Even in total darkness, such as that of the long hallway, was not a problem for her. As far as she was able to tell, outside of rats, and roaches, it was nothing more than a large hallway with multiple pipes running overhead. The vermin were being drawn to something, as she was able to pinpoint the sound of them eating, something, whatever it was, it was made of flesh. Based upon the waves being bounced back, it seemed to be an limb. Strix followed the noise, as her curiosity had been peaked, and she wanted to see just what was so tantalizing to the rodents, and insects. The chewing, and tearing became progressively louder, as she came closer, and closer to the source of the noise. What she had already guessed was confirmed, as she saw the upper half of a severed arm, being eaten, by the diseased animals that lived in the underground. The arm seemed to be human, but it was also gray, with bones jutting out of it, in a seemingly random order. Reaching down, Strix grabbed the limb, and then with a loud snap, she tore a piece of it, bone, skin, and all, in order to use as a sample.

Tay and M were both relatively hard at work, doing their sky patrol. However, as it appeared, there was no outside action, and while M said nothing, Tay was beginning to become bored. The itch for something to happen was going off inside of the young teenager's head. He wanted to be on the inside with the action, not playing look out, for the what if's that could occur.

Despite this being their first team up, Kate, and Morgan actually proved to work quite well together, and had been able to coordinate their efforts, and they had not gotten into any arguments. If anything, they actually showed a lot of interest in each other. "This is actually my first time, to a surface world, hospital, I certainly hope they aren't all like this." Morgan told Kate, who gave her a reassuring smile, before responding. "Oh, don't worry, most hospitals, up here, are very clean, and professional, it's just when they get closed down, they go into states of decay, though places like this, take the cake." Kate told her. "I mean especially since this one here, was not just a hospital, but originally this was a prison, and later on a test zone, before being turned into a hospital." Kate said to Morgan. "Something seems off with the water, have you sensed anything? Or am I perhaps being paranoid?" Morgan asked the other girl. "No, I can sense something as well, an evil aura is around this place." Kate noted to the other girl, as they continued along with their path.

As the walked down the hallway, had a single, large, metal door at the end, with multiple bolts in it. There was a glass window on it, that was cracked. Whatever foul thing they were sensing, it was coming from behind that door. The two of them exchanged a look, and then with a silent nod, they peered through the glass. What the saw was nothing good. Kate activated her communications link, to send a message to the rest of the team. "Everyone, we just hit a gold mine, we need back up, as in now." Kate said to the rest of the team. "What is it?" Thomas asked her. "You know those monster people we're looking for? Yeah, Morgan and I just found a nesting ground for them, they're in a locked off section, it's a part of the hospital that never got a make over, so it's a lot of prison cells, mostly broken, there's only one door, and we're at it." After a moment of silence, Thomas replied to her. "Alright everyone, rendezvous to their location, let's shut this place down." Thomas told them.

(And don't worry Tay, you'll get a nice part in the second half, since the whole battle thing is going to happen.)


	4. The Clues to Fear, and Power

The two girls waited, each of them on either side of the large door. As they bided their time, waiting for back up, to arrive, Kate held up a hand, and placed it on the door.

"What are you doing?" Morgan asked the other girl, who now had her eyes closed.

"I'm sensing the aura in the room, trying to see what it can tell me about those, people in there." Kate said to her.

As she began to feel the aura coming from the subjects, Kate's legs began to shake, and her teeth started to chatter, causing Morgan to become concerned for her.

Her condition appeared to worsen, as Kate began to take rapid breaths of air, at which point Morgan decided to no longer stand by, and pulled Kate from the door.

Kate's eyes opened, almost as if in shock, and she took a deep breath of air, before seeming to calm down.

"What was that!?" Morgan asked in an exasperated, and clearly worried tone of voice.

"I think,..." Kate paused as she took another deep breath, "I think, it's something everyone needs to know." She told the Atlantean.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Shade, and Emerald were the first of the other team mates to arrive on the scene. Shade's phasing power was utilized, to simply go straight to the girls, rather than having to take any stairs, or turns, or any other thing in their path.

The next two to arrive were Tay, and M, having used their strength to tear a path to Kate, and Morgan.

They were shortly followed by the arrival of Strix, Thomas, Alicia, and Leeann.

"Did anything new happen?" Thomas asked the group as a whole, but the question was mostly directed at Kate, and Morgan.

"Yes, I scanned their aura's in the room, all of those people in there, those mutated beings, they're scared." Kate told him.

"Scared? Like response scared to danger?" Thomas asked her.

"No I mean, they are, as far as I can tell, going through a phobia, it's as if all of them are under a mass hallucination of their worst fears." Kate explained to the group.

"So then maybe whatever they were exposed to, doesn't harm them, the heart attacks could be brought on, by their elevated stress levels." Thomas pointed out to the group.

"They were exposed to something called M99, but there was some crazy guy, he may have added something else. Shade, and I located a computer, it shows everything." Emerald said to Thomas, displaying a calmer, more serious side to his personality.

Thomas paused for a moment, as he thought over what to do. "Alright, we go in there, take them down as fast as possible, and try to avoid any serious damage. When we get back to the base, we can go over what's in them." He told the group, at which point, Strix spoke up to the group.

"I did that, my goggles, have a lot of scan features, still I think we should take care of the problem first." She said to Thomas, who nodded at her information.

The team got ready, and then Thomas opened the door.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The team had ten members, the mutated, test subjects, numbered at about 50, leaving about five, for each of them to take care of.

They stench of urine, and fecal matter was almost overpowering.

The bestial, people attacked first, rushing at what they seemed to perceive as a threat with animalistic fury.

Thomas met one of them head on, ducking under a swipe at his head, and then ramming his elbow in the mutant's midsection, knocking the wind out of it.

Thomas took the time, to use his bat, gripping it like a staff, and smacking the mutant under the chin with it, knocking it to the ground.

Thomas then turned, and gave a swing to another mutant, the sound of it's ribs cracking under the blow could be heard.

Thomas performed a pivot, and then with a downwards thrust, he took out the leg of another.

When another mutant struck at him, Thomas blocked with the bat, causing the mutant to break two of it's fingers, at which point, Thomas kicked it in the stomach, and then grabbed the mutant's head to ram his knee into it's face.

Another mutant rushed at him, Thomas held his bat in front of himself to absorb the impact, however the mutant was stronger, and still knocked Thomas backwards, though he only stumbled.

When the mutant came at him again, Thomas performed an underhanded swing, going upwards diagonally, and hitting the mutant in it's jaw.

Morgan was using her water powers to fight, along with other magical abilities picked up from her training.

She formed an orb of water around the head of a mutant, cutting off it's air supply. The mutant struggled for a few moments, before being rendered comatose.

When another mutant rushed her from the side, Morgan, directed water to push it down to the ground, and then zapped the experiment.

A blast of water, laced with electricity, was sent into the torso of another mutant, causing the creature to fall.

A mutant appeared to have attacked Morgan, slashing through her body, only for Morgan to disperse into water.

The real Morgan then wrapped water around it's legs, and slammed it into the ground.

Morgan's final mutant was taken care of, when she knocked a high speed ball of water into the mutant.

Out of all of the members of the team, Shade seemed to be the least involved over the combat.

Having the power to phase through solid matter, meant that he did not have to care as much, about getting injured.

Shade took out two mutants at once, when they both charged, and he phased, causing them to knock their heads into each other.

Shade ran at a third mutant, jumping at it's waist, and phasing it into the ground. Shade then ran a phased hand through it's skull, rendering it unconscious.

Shade phased his arm through the chest of another, causing the creature to fall from the attack.

Shade let another mutant, that was charging, phase through him, and it smashed it's head into the floor.

Kate, cart wheeled out of the way of a mutant's downward punch. The ground cracked under the force of the blow. She then retaliated, by stabbing it in the leg with a knife. The mutant howled in pain, but it went down.

She was able to hear the approach of another, and a purple energy engulfed her hands, as she turned, and dealt a double fisted blow, sending the mutant sprawling.

Kate then back flipped, to avoid, a mutant that was taking a swipe at her. Kate concentrated for a moment, and then shut down the mind of the beast.

A frown came across her face, as Kate felt a little bad for using such a tactic.

Kate mind controlled another mutant, and used it to attack another one, before shutting down the mind controlled one.

Emerald, and Leeann proved to make a good tag team, as they were both able to effortlessly blend their powers into their fighting styles.

Leeann jumped backwards, to avoid the claws of a mutant. As she did so, she transformed her arm into a long tentacle, which wrapped itself around the mutant's arm.

Leeann pulled, the creature, slingshotting it forward. Emerald who was waiting for the mutant, had created a large mallet and gave it a blow to the chest.

When another mutant came at her, Leeann jumped up, her legs transforming into springs, which she used to deliver a powerful kick, staggering the mutant.

She then followed up by morphing tendrils out of her arms, to wrap around the mutant's legs, and then slam it into the ground.

Emerald fought off two mutants at once, one of them came from the side, and he created a hard shield, and then quickly making a step, Emerald used it to go upwards, jumped, and then twisted while reinforcing his shin with emerald, and laying a kick to the head of the mutant.

Immediately afterwards, before even hitting the ground, he shot out shards at an approaching mutant. This tactic, temporarily blinded the creature, and Emerald, followed up by creating a disc, and throwing it at a different mutant, getting a head shot, and downing it.

He then returned to the stunned one, and charged the creature, his shoulder becoming covered, and ramming into it.

Leeann meanwhile morphed a pair of wings, and after flying up dive bombed on one of the mutants.

When another mutant grabbed at her wings, she made them disappear, and instead grew a tail with a hard club at the end, and whacked the mutant in it's head.

Leeann then jumped onto the back of a mutant, her hands becoming covered in bone like studs. She boxed the mutant's ears, and then gave a hard punch to the back of it's head.

During her combat, Strix made use of multi-purpose discs, along with hand to hand combat.

She jumped up, turning her body, horizontally, her legs putting a mutant into a pair of head scissors. Strix twisted, using the momentum to bring the beast down.

As the mutant fell, she leapt off, throwing a disc in mid-air, that hit another mutant with a surge of electricity.

When another mutant attacked from behind, Strix, ducked under the arm, and then from behind the creature, she swept its' legs out, with one of her own, and then using her other leg, brought her knee into the mutant's chest.

A mutant attempted to ram, at her, and at first she stood her ground. Just as the behemoth came close, however Strix bobbed to the side, and grabbed it's arm.

After doing so, she swung her torso, connecting her boots to the mutant's face.

She was then almost grabbed from behind. Strix, heard the attack though, she leapt to the side, and then threw a disc at the abdomen of the mutant, causing it to stumble.

Strix finished the creature, by jumping up, putting it into a headlock, and then slamming it into the ground.

Out of all of the fighters, Alicia could have been called the most pragmatic.

She never considered herself a goody two-shoes, or even a hero for that matter. She simply won by any means necessary.

While she did have skills in hand to hand combat, which she displayed, from dodging a mutant claw, and then chopping that mutant in the throat, and kicking it's kneecap out, she seemed to prefer the stand by method.

Alicia held out her hands, and then made a squeezing gesture, breaking the ribs of one of the mutants.

She then used her telekinesis to casually lift another, and then slam it into a wall several times. Her expression was almost a bored one.

Alicia then used her powers on another, she controlled the mutant as if it were a puppet. A puppet which she used to fight the others with.

The controlled mutant, put another into a full nelson, and then jumped down, smashing it to the floor.

Alicia then hit the controlled one with a blast of telekinetic energy.

Tay, and M, the two powerhouses of the team. While they were both powerful, the way they displayed that power was in full opposite.

Tay embraced his power, and seemed to have a good amount of control over it. M on the other hand seemed to fear his, and so while Tay was open, M was reclusive during the battle.

Tay blasted one mutant with an energy beam, and then gave a hard uppercut to one that was trying to ram into him.

M meanwhile stood in one spot, and then zapped a mutant by snapping his fingers, and sending out an arc of electrcity.

Another mutant appeared to punch M, who super heated the air, causing the mutant's arm to burn before the contact was able to be made. M then backhanded the mutant sending it flying.

Tay stopped a mutant with ice beams, causing the creature to fall from it's drastically lowered body temperature.

He then flew at another, tackling the mutant, and going into the wall with it.

M caught the hand of a mutant who tried to claw him, and in retaliation, M punched it in the stomach, the mutant coughed up blood as it fell over.

M then teleported to another, a charging one, where it charged right into his fist.

Tay side stepped, another attack, and then downed the mutant with a hard punch to the jaw.

M meanwhile took care of the last one, by blasting it with electricity.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The battle was over, and the team stood proudly in victory. The fight had not been a hard one by any means. They were basically fighting animals. The mutants were strong, but they were not unstoppable, rampage strong, and they had animal level intelligence, combined with low coordination. "We did it!" Tay said taking joy in their triumph, and getting a hi-five from Emerald. "Yeah, now we have to perform clean up." Alicia pointed out to them.

(And now a little time skip, our heroes are back at the base.)

The team sat down in the living room, going over their first mission, considering what went well, and things that could have gone better.

They had all watched the video that Emerald and Shade had found on the laptop. Thomas after viewing it turned to Strix to ask her a nearly forgotten question.

"Strix, you said you were able to scan them, what did you find?" Thomas asked of her.

"It was a mix of different serums. However I've never seen any like them. The first one was similar to the venom serum, the one that created that Bane guy. However this strain was more potent, not only pumping the muscle, but also the bones, and skin tissue as well, which is why they, have deformities such as random spikes of bones, or oversized, foreheads, and jaws. The second one however is the one I found more interesting. The other serum present, is a neurotoxin. One that produces hallucinations of what one fears the most. In small doses, I'd say it would last for maybe a few minuets, but these guys here, they had a lot of it pumped in, meaning they were basically in a never ending nightmare."

Thomas thought things over for a moment before asking her another question. "I only know of one person who deals with trying to use fear to commit crimes,...Scarecrow. However before we jump here, I need to ask if you know of any possible cures?"

"Creating a cure is easy, tracking down those responsible, and preventing this from happening again is the hard part." She told him.

"But, I thought that we knew it was this Milo person, and the Scarecrow man?" Morgan asked the team.

"We know Milo worked on the serum, but we don't have proof that he screwed it up, or plotted to turn innocent people into monsters, also while Scarecrow does work through fear, that does not automatically mean it was him. He may be operating behind the scenes, or it's possible that someone else is aware of his M.O., and framing him." Thomas said to the Atlantean girl.

"Still there is good that came of the video. We can try and track down this Milo, and since the recorder took date times, we could give the North Team a call, see if Nightwing knows what the good doctor was up to on the nights in question, between one month before the video's start, and then the end date of the experiment's." Thomas said to the others, who nodded in agreement with him.

"Alright, Emerald since you're our computer guy, see if you can get anything on this Milo character." Thomas said to him.

"Not a problem." Emerald said giving a playful salute.

"And Strix work on a cure if you can. I meanwhile will give Nightwing a call and find out what I can." Thomas said to the group.


	5. Dr Williams

Every bedroom that the team had was the same. The choice to further decorate it was up to them. Each room, came with a king sized bed, with a small nightstand table on the left side.

The bedrooms were lighted with five, drum shade lights hanging from the walls and ceiling were both painted white, and devoid of any features, or designs.

On the wall opposite of the bed, every bedroom had a dresser, with four shelves to it. This dresser was next to a closet with dark brown, wooden doors, and black handles.

Then on the left from the door entrance, into the room they all received a wooden desk, for which to use in case of studying, or just a place to put things.

Emerald had been studying quite hard, all night, his torso was draped over the desk, as he had fallen asleep. There was a lot he was able to learn, and then more that was left unanswered.

The sound of the alarm clock, had failed to awaken Emerald. A hard knock on his door however sufficed. "Ah..wha? Mm ah, hang on a minuet."

Emerald said in response to the knocking, as he stood up and stretched. Walking over, he answered the door, and found Kate there.

"I noticed you were late to breakfast, and so I decided to get you." She said greeting him with a warm smile.

"Ah, right, breakfast, the most important meal of the day, right, thanks." He said to her, as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"Well that and there's something on the news, we're all finding it interesting." She told him.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

As for their breakfast, the team had a large selection of food. There were some members who ate whatever they felt like, while others went for more of a balanced breakfast.

Emerald himself was more interested in finding out what the news had on. As a result, he made due with a couple of bagels, and yogurt.

On the far right end of the couch, Kate, and Morgan were chatting with each other. They both had bowls of cereal that they were eating.

Tay was either not eating, or had finished already, but he was laying upside down on the couch. Emerald was not sure how his hat stayed one.

Alicia was sitting by M, she was eating toast, while M just had a glass of milk.

"Glad to see you're up, we'll talk in a bit, but for now, watch this." Thomas said to Emerald, who nodded and took a seat on the large couch.

The news had a story on a very gruesome murder, that had occurred. Normally this would not be surprising, except for the victim of the murder was Bane.

The venom pumped man had been found in an old warehouse. Bane was beaten, strangles, burned alive, skinned, had acid damage, and the killing blow was a slash across his throat.

Morgan gulped, having never seen such brutality before. "Who could do such a thing?" She asked with disgust apparent in her voice.

"Just some nutbag, or someone who had a grudge against him." Tay said to her.

"So, Emerald what did you find out?" Thomas asked him, in reference to his research.

"Oh yeah, I found out that our Milo guy is Achilles Milo, he was a genius, chemist." Emerald said to the group.

"Was?" Thomas asked, taking note of that word. "Yeah, from what I gathered, he just dropped off the Earth, roughly five months ago." He replied to Thomas, who nodded.

"Hmm, about the same time, as the M99 Projects. So then we have to figure out if he left on his own terms, or if someone else took him out of the picture."

Thomas then told the team about his own progress with getting in touch with the North team. "I managed to get ahold of Nightwing, he sent me records on Scarecrow, he was present in Arkham Asylum, for the majority of the days, but it seems that he had contacts on the outside, who Nightwing said he would question in order to help us. He's also going to question, Scarecrow personally." Thomas said to the team.

"Well now, Strix the cure?" Thomas asked her. Strix did not say anything, but gave a slight nod, and held up a vial of blue liquid.

"On another note, since our training was interrupted last time, I'd like for us to hit the stimulation, this time I'd like for us to go stealth training, quick takedowns, traps, that sort of thing." Thomas explained to them.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

(I chose the OC's for the stimulation in accordance to coin flip. Except for Thomas, as team leader he has to set a good example, and go first.)

As before, Thomas was the one to go first. He did not mind which scenario was chosen, so he selected, the predator mode, and randomized it.

The computer made the choice of warehouse. The layout had two levels to it. The floor was covered, with four aisles of metal shelves. They were wide enough to walk on, and all of them were over eight feet in height, so no one would be able to peer over them.

On either side of the ground level were floor grates, that could be used. There was a hollowed out opening in the front, with a hole, behind a pillar, which was the middle of two other pillars.

There were stairs, which lead up to a walk way, it had a metal railing, and simply went around the room.

Before stepping in Thomas had one last thing to tell the team. "Eventually I want us to practice with super villains, and of course get our teamwork down. We could even spar each other some time." He said to them.

Thomas then stepped into the program, he was placed in the hole behind the pillar. As for his enemies, there were six of them, all of them armed thugs. There were four in the aisles below, and two of them patrolling in the area up top.

Two thugs the closest one's were walking towards each other, something Thomas took note of. He went to an aisle, and crouched down, as they went past each other.

The moment one of them walked by, Thomas quickly grabbed him, putting him into a sleeper hold. The man passed out after a few seconds, and Thomas immediately headed around the corner, and took out the other one.

He then decided to set up a trap, Thomas used his pyrokinesis to light a small fire, that would be used to attract attention. He went over into the floor grates, and headed toward the south end of the warehouse.

As he did so, Thomas could hear the others mentioning about smelling smoke, as they came to check out what was going on.

One of the patrol members up top had stayed there, while the other one had come down, to check out the smoke with the others.

"Shit, there's a man down!" One of them yelled out. Thomas took their confusion, to jump up on a shelf, and then back flip to the railing, where he would be able to take down the guard up there.

Thomas took his gun, and then threw it into an aisle to get the attention of the others. He then leapt on top of a shelf, and moved quietly until he was overhead the other three.

Thomas held his bat, horizontally in both hands. He jumped down, knocking down all three of them, and then with three consecutive head punches, he took them all out.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

The next person to enter the stimulation was Morgan. The computer once again randomized the choice. The one Morgan received, was a house.

It was nothing fancy, just an ordinary, house with three levels to it.

The basement level, had an old shower, with large, yellow curtain, and two other rooms to it. One of which was filled with old junk.

The middle level, had a living room, which was connected to a kitchen. Then it also had a hallway, that had a bathroom, and a bedroom.

The upstairs was the smallest, it had a room at one end, a bathroom in the middle, and a room at the other end.

As before there were six armed thugs, two of them per level. Morgan however did not start out in the house. She started out in a breezeway, next to a freezer, that was under a window.

Morgan climbed onto the freezer, and then opened the window, where she crawled through into the bathroom of the middle level.

Morgan decided to use a little water to scope things out. She created orbs of water, small ones, like a field of raindrops, which she then sent out in order to scope out the area.

As for the level she was in, one thug was down in the kitchen, the other however was in the room, right next to her.

Morgan waited behind the bathroom door, as she knew the man was turning, and about to leave the room. As he was doing so, she made a puddle by the doorway.

He stepped out, his boots hitting the water. "Heh, the toilet must of over flown or something, weird." The man said, not realizing the water seeping up behind him.

Morgan made the water, engulf the man, so that he would not struggle, and attract attention, and used it to take him out. She then took his gun, and moved down the hallway, the other thug was now in the living room.

Morgan went behind the man, and hit him, in the back of the head, with the rifle. She grabbed onto him before he fell, so that she could lay him down gently.

Morgan decided to go for the one's in the basement next. One of them was out in the open, just standing there, presumably to keep watch.

Morgan wrapped a water bubble around his head, and took him out. She then repeated the same tactic with the one in the junk filled room.

After doing this, Morgan took a rifle, and fired it a few times, knowing the other two left would come rushing. She hid around the corner of the junk room, creating aqua spheres, filled with electrcity.

As soon as they came down the stairs, Morgan took both of them out.

AAAAAAAAAAA

Thomas was about to select a new member to go into the stimulation, however, he received a message it was from Nightwing.

"Hello, Nightwing." Thomas said to the hologram of the original boy wonder.

"Good, news I think I found out who your mad doctor was." Nightwing said to Thomas, causing the other team members to perk up, as they wanted to know.

"Alright now, during the period in question, Crane was never behind the incident at the hospital, actually he was not even aware of a Stane hospital existing. However did he relate to some of his items being taken, by a Dr. Gregory Williams, it seems that Dr. Williams was once exposed himself, along with his daughter to Crane's fear gas. The daughter killed herself, and Williams took a canister of fear gas, in a fit of madness. Ironically enough, Scarecrow was trying to kill him, and get it back on the night Batman, apprhended and took him back to Arkham, allowing, Dr. Williams to flee." Nightwing explained to all of them.

Thomas looked over at Emerald who gave a nod about what Nightwing said. "There was a Greg Williams as one of the head doctors named in the experiments."

This was a nice thing to hear for the team, as they now only needed to find this Gregory Williams.

"Thank you Nightwing." Thomas said to the other team leader. Nightwing responded with a "No problem" before signing out.

"Alright, let's focus on finding Williams, or at the very least we can track down any surviving doctors of the massacre, of people related to the guy

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

A leather gloved, hand entered a code and a heavy door slid open. Inside the room was small and padded.

"Apologies, Dr. Williams, I am afraid it's time for you to go." Hugo Strange said to the man in a straight jacket.

Whatever was left of Greg Williams had been destroyed by Hugo Strange. The professor, had been the one to drug him, to plant post hypnotic suggesstions in his mind.

He was well aware that for some time, other men would be blamed for what had occured at Stand Hospital.

This however was no longer the case. Strange approached the man, who made no response, he was unable to, in his current condition.

The professor then injected a serum into Greg's neck, one that would cause him to forget everything, that had happened in the past year.

After doing this, Strange made a mental note to allow Greg to be released from the facility, if some hero then tracked him down for information, it would not be on Strange's head, as he had already deleted all files on Greg Williams.

"It's been a pleasure, Dr. WIlliams, you will wake up, in a nice bed, and you will not remember a thing."


	6. Strange Justice Part 1

There were many languages in the world. There were spoken languages, and written languages. There were some who showed their words through artistic expression, and others through song. A trained warrior however, spoke a different language. It was one that did not involve words, but action.

When two combatants, that were both well trained fought each other, they could understand each other, on a level that no amount of talking would ever get them to. Two members of the team were sparring each other, and finding out just how true this was.

Thomas, and Strix the two best hand to hand fighters of the team, had agreed to a friendly sparring match with each other. The skill level they possessed was on equal footing. The two of them met each other, and exchanged attacks in a rhythmic manner.

Thomas blocked a chop by Strix, and went for a blow to her ribs, only for Strix, to avoid the attack, and go for a leg sweep, which Thomas jumped over. When Strix came back up, Thomas went for an elbow to the face, which Strix jumped back from. He then followed with a left hook, at the same time that Strix was going for a roundhouse kick, the two attacks connecting at the same time.

As the fight continued, Emerald walked in and noticed them. At this point, they were very close to each other. "I don't know if you guys are sparring or trying to hug each other, but either way, it's 11:30, boss man, you wanted us to get going."

Thomas put his hands on his hips, feeling the cool air on his muscle shirt. "Thanks, Emerald, good session Strix." Thomas said to both of them. They all three left the training room, and headed for the living room, where Thomas would issue the mission orders.

AAAAAAAAA

Thomas took a seat in the living room, looking at everyone who was present. "Alright so we're looking into two, prime, suspects. Gregory Williams, and Achilles Milo. Both of them had ties to the M99 project. Thanks to Emerald's computer work, we now have sources to track down, and talk to."

Thomas took a brown folder off the table, and opened it. He pulled out a small, stack of papers. "Okay now, we'll be pairing up two by two for this." Thomas said he began to hand out the papers.

The first paper was one that he handed to Alicia. "Alicia, you and Kate will be together, the two of you will be going to 2313, Westgrove. You'll be talking to a Marian Brown, a survivor of the massacre."

The next paper, Thomas handed to Emerald. "You and Morgan will be together, you're going to visit Carl Boer, he is Greg's cousin through marriage. He lives on 1810, Barker Avenue."

Thomas handed out the rest of the files, while explaining to the team who each of them would be paired with. The partners outside of those already mentioned were; Thomas with M, Strix with Tay, and Leeann with Shade.

AAAAAAAA

Kate, and Alicia found themselves on opposite ends of the idealism versus cynicism spectrum. As a result of this, they were not the best at getting along with each other.

"I don't think you needed to suffocate the guy, he was going to talk." Kate said to the other girl. Alicia responded by asking if she read his mind to figure that out.

"How can someone as brutal as you be considered a hero?" Kate asked her. "I've never called myself a hero. I just take care of those who seek to prey on others." Alicia said to the team healer.

"That can be done without torture, or killing." Kate responded to her. Alicia gave a slight huff before responding to that one. "Look, I get that my methods may come off as grotesque, but where I'm from, they work. Killing sends a very strong message, and criminals think twice before deciding to piss me off on my home turf. My methods scare them, I'm sorry that they scare people like you too."

Their conversation came to an end as they both ascended the concrete steps leading to the front door of the house they were sent to. Kate was the one to ring the doorbell. A few moments later, they were greeted by a middle aged, brown haired woman. They both recognized her as Marian the lady they were looking for.

"Oh hi there. Can I help you two?" Marian asked with a beaming smile and unblinking eyes. Both girls quickly took notice of this, and shared a look of caution with each other. "Yeah, we're hoping to talk to you about a man named Greg Williams." Alicia said to her, getting right to the point.

"Of course! Please, come in." Marian said opening the door for the two heroes to step inside. The decor of Marian's living room was English Cottage. The floor was wooden, though it was mostly covered by a large mahogany colored rug. The rug had an intricate swirl pattern of beige, and green upon it.

The room was not very big. The walls were made of stone, that were a mix of light, gray, and brown in color. A few feet down, but otherwise in front of the door was a small table. It was a cushion table, the sort that looked like a couch cushion, with attached table legs on it. It was blue in color.

This table was about a foot in front of a fireplace. There were three places to sit. On the right side of the table there were two chairs. One of them was a recliner, it was yellow in color, and had a design of green, and red vines upon it.

The other chair was a simple, cushioned chair, that was white in color. In the middle of them, there was a small, wooden table. On the other side of the cushioned table, there was a yellow couch, with two cushions to it.

The two heroines took a seat on the yellow couch, while Marian sat down on the white couch. "So, what do you need to know?...Oh, hang on there, I seem to have forgotten my manners, do either of you want a drink? Tea, water, lemonade, perhaps?" She asked them.

The two girls both said no to her offer. "We just want to know what you can tell us about Greg Williams, and then we'll be out of your hair." Kate said to her, in a civil tone.

"Oh well, Greg was a smart man, a very nice man. He was kind of shy though. During our work together, he seemed to get upset when our tests failed." Marian began to explain to them about Greg. Kate meanwhile set up a psychic link with Alicia.

"I apologize for the mental intrusion, please don't make any sudden movements, but this lady is not right." Kate mentally said to her partner. "If you're saying she's lying, I could use some enhanced interrogation." Alicia thought back at Kate.

"That's just it, she doesn't know that she is, it's like her mind was wiped clean, and everything she's telling us is like a rehearsal." Kate mentally responded at the other girl.

The two of them despite knowing of Marian's problem listened to every word that she had to say. "Thank you for your time." Kate said to Marian as she finished telling them about Greg. She was very eager to leave that house, the vibe of it was just off.

AAAAAAAAAA

"I like this place." Emerald said as he, and Morgan arrived at 1810 Barker Avenue. The place they were sent to was a mansion. It actually looked like an old, college, house. It even had a couple of lion statues out in the front on either side of the front door.

Morgan rang the doorbell as it was on her side. "Hey, it's the Ghostbuster's tune. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, When there's something bad, in the neighborhood." Emerald began to sing along with the tune, though he stopped abruptly when the door opened.

In front of them stood a man of average stature, with a shaved head, and a suit on. This man was not, Carl. "May I help you?" The man said to them in a formal tone. "Is Carl Boer, home we need to talk about a relative of his." Emerald said to the man, who he suspected was a servant.

"Wait here." The man told them, as he walked off. Morgan, and Emerald were both able to get a look at the interior of the mansion. It seemed that Carl was in the politest terms possible, a nerd.

He had stacks of comics, even life-like, statues of certain League Members. "Well this will be easy." Emerald noted to Morgan, as they waited for someone to return to them. The red door, was then reopened by Carl himself.

He was a slightly overweight, tall man, with a short, flattop of black hair. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, dark, blue, sweat pants, and a large, maroon colored robe. "Are you Justice League?" He asked the two heroes.

"As a matter of fact we are." Emerald said to him, quickly realizing, that it was probably just best, to play along with this man's fantasy. Carl gave an excited fist pump, while mouthing "Yes" before inviting them in.

"So I heard your hear to talk about a relative of mine, this reminds of me of Tales of Strange Happenings, Volume 8, when Ken was visited by the FBI, for information on his sister." Carl explained to them.

"This is,...exactly like that. We're here for information on your cousin Greg Williams." Emerald said to him. "Oh yeah, he went mad, and then he went missing, just like in Ka-Ji Adventures, Issue #46." Carl said in reply.

"Sir with all due respect, this is serious." Morgan said to Carl. Emerald nodded to what Morgan, said which is why he wanted to hear about the comic.

"Tell us, Mr. Boer, how exactly did that issue play out?" Carl smiled at being able to explain a bit of his comic knowledge.

"Well it started with..." Around 15 minuets later, Carl had finished explaining how the particular comic had went.

"Hey Morgan, do you think, that you could get in touch with T-Man? I think this could be useful to him." Emerald said to her. Morgan said that she would do so, and gave Thomas a ring.

(I had to cut out Carl's retelling of the storyline, or else the plot would be resolved right here.)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Thomas and M had been interrogating Jacob Rutherford, a man who was not all together interested in being questioned. Thomas had become fed up with his attitude. "I've tried being nice, but I don't wear a badge, I don't need a search warrant, to kick your door in. Now you can choose to talk, and be safe, or you can continue your current attitude, and I'll beat the information from you." Thomas said to him in a serious tone. It was for the most part a bluff, Thomas would never just harm a civilian without a very justified reason, even if they were behaving like jerks. The bluff seemed to work, as Jacob's eyes took on a frightened look, and he gulped, much to Thomas's satisfaction. "Good, now where you on the following date's." Thomas began to run through a list of date's and times. Jacob began to answer them, and as he got halfway through, Thomas received a call. "Hold on there man." Thomas said to Jacob, and then answered the phone. "Hello, yeah hey, Morgan...Alright, go ahead." Thomas for a little bit, became quiet as he listened to what the girl on the other end had to say. As the phone call went on, Thomas went from vague surprise, to a smirk coming across his face. "Well, Mr. Rutherford, it seems that you won't be needed." Thomas said to him, as he stood up. Thomas then sent a message to all team members. "I know what to do, meet me back at base, and we'll end this."

(Time SKip)

Greg had been having a rather bizarre day. He woke up, and did not remember pretty much anything, aside from his name. He was not sure why, but he had a fake mustache, and beard on. He also suspected that he must have dyed his hair, as the roots were black, while the rest was a dirty blonde, color. His day had went from awkward, to being terrifying. It had been night time, and Greg had been taken from his home, with a dark bag, placed over his head.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"I don't normally do, late night calls." Hugo Strange said to the boy in the baseball cap. Hugo Strange also noted a hearing aid in his ear.

"Well Prof Man, I've got some problems, and I need the help." Tay said to Hugo Strange as he sat in his office.

"I see, go on, where do these problems stem from?" Hugo asked of the young man, not knowing his true identity. "I guess, I'd probably say my mom, she left when I was a four, and my dad got involved with the drug trade, to try and raise me."

Tay said, lying to the psychologist. "It sounds like you've been through a rough time." Strange said to the teenager. "You know what's really rough? My dad has this little God Complex going on, I think you'd know about that." Tay said to him.

Strange paused for a moment, before responding. "I'm sorry?" Hugo replied in a questioning manner. "Oh I'm just saying, the way you took a scientist, and then brainwashed a new identity into him, so that he'd think he was a different scientist, while both of them worked on the same project." Tay said to him, dropping all pretense.

Hugo Strange was good at hiding his anger, though he did tense slightly. "Interesting theory you have there." Hugo said in response to that.

"Oh it's not a theory, I know Achillies Milo, and Greg Williams, found him, we injected him with an antidote to your toxins." Tay explained to him, and noticed as Hugo became angrier.

"Are you attempting to threaten me young man? My experiment with turning people into what they truly are, was a success, you have no proof, even what I'm saying now, is just my word against yours. Besides, how will you tell anyone, if you don't even know who you are?" Hugo said to Tay, as he switched on a small radio.

The radio began to play out a specialized pitch, and Strange smirked. "I noticed your hearing aid, but I believe this pitch will be right for you. As Tay seemed to not be affected, his smirk became surprised, fear.

Tay stood up, and went to the desk, where he turned off the radio. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not a hearing aid, it's a Comm-Link."

"Okay guys, come on in." Tay said, as he pressed on the communications link. The door opened, and several SWAT members stepped inside.

"We just heard a full confession, you're under arrest, Professor Strange." Tay grinned widely, and said "Gotcha". As the officers filed out, he gave Thomas a ring to let him know that the plan had worked.

(And no this is not over yet, I'm not one to wrap the plot just yet, I'm one of those overarch kind of people. However for now, let's appluad the V-Team on a fully successful mission.)


	7. Starting Answers

(Alright everyone this chapter will have a German character in it. He is a DC character, so I did not make him. His name is William Von Hammer. Now as I am not German, myself I asked the help of a friend, who is to translate certain phrases from English, into German. In the event she is unavailable I will use certain websites. That being said, I will write the accent in the same as the other characters, I'm not going to have him say "Ja" all the time, and replace the first letter of every word with a V. )

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The hardest part about being a leader, was the responsibility that came with the job. Thomas accepted this, and felt personally responsible for every member of his team. A healthy, and happy team was one that would perform well, and be far less likely to make mistakes when they were on the field.

As a result of this, Thomas learned that he needed to make not only plans, but plans within plans. This is what had lead to his decision in hiring a Private Investigator. It was a man who specialized in the ridiculous.

Thomas did not trust how easily Professor Strange had went down, and he wanted to know what was really going on. Currently he was waiting, for a call back, and as he did so Thomas was content to sit down, and read for the time being.

As far as the team was concerned, they had been allowed to relax today, provided that no missions came up. Many of them were more than happy to take advantage of that opportunity, and unwind.

AAAAAAAAAAAA

Leeann, and Tay had decided to spend some of their time off playing video games together. It turned out that they enjoyed many of the same games, so picking one out was not a difficult task for them. The game they had chosen was a futuristic, first person shooter type of game.

"Wait..how'd you get the armor?" Tay asked her, about her game character. "The magical of world of cheat codes." Leeann said back to him, causing Tay to purse his lips slightly.

The game started up on the first level. "Stay behind me!" Leeann said loudly, as Tay's character ran in front of hers. "What? No way! I'm going for the high score!" Tay said to her, as his character scouted ahead.

"You have a pistol. A pistol with only six rounds before reloading." She said to him. "Yeah, I know. I'm great with pistols in these games for some reason. I can't explain it, but I get a head shot a good 95 percent of the time." Tay said to her, as he focused on the screen.

When the enemies came, Leeann threw a grenade, took cover, and then laid into the aliens with machine gun fire, and a few well placed, rifle shots to the heads.

Tay meanwhile ran straight at them with his pistol, and actually managed to get off several head shots, while avoiding enemy fire. "I'm reloading!" Leeann let Tay know even though she still had half a clip left.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Emerald had spent most of the morning, hacking into encrypted police files. Thomas said that although he wanted to take Strange down to get him out of their hair, he wanted to know if any officials had contact with the Professor, in which case they may have been on his side, without even knowing it.

A few of the officers, had prior to the arrest, known Strange, but it never said if they knew him as a personal psychiatrist or not. Despite this, Emerald still took down their information, for future reference. After this was done, Emerald felt like hitting the gym, for a work out.

The gym area, had virtually every piece of equipment there was, in which to work out with. It also came equipped with multiple air-conditions. Emerald pressed down on the silver colored, lever of the wooden door, and inside he saw Kate on a treadmill.

"Oh, uh...if you want I can come back later?" Emerald half said, and half asked her. He was aware that some people enjoyed their privacy while exercising.

"Oh, no it's fine, go right ahead." Kate said to him, as she slowed down to a walk. Emerald gave a brief nod, and went over to the weight bench. He set at 350 lbs, and then got into position. As he lifted the bar, he decided a chat would not hurt.

"So, I was wondering." He began to say, as he did a rep. "What made you take up this life?" Emerald asked his, healer, teammate.

"I wanted to help." That was Kate's response to him, and he took it in, as he did a few more repetitions.

"Heh, I guess I just enjoy making fools of those who prey on others." He said to her. "I even remember the first time,...I really got into the wise cracking."

Emerald paused for a moment, as he lifted the weights once more. "Now don't get me wrong here, I understand things such as eating from depression, genetic obesity, gland problems, and all of that. When I was fighting this one guy though, very early in my career, he was a heavy man, and so I just started making fat joke, after fat joke at him. It wasn't because he was heavy, it was because he was a dick, that was trying to steal money from a family, and he even threatened their daughter, she was like four. If he had been a good person, as in non criminal, then I wouldn't have made those jokes at him." Emerald explained to Kate, though he was more or less just rambling, and did not actually know how much she was listening to or not.

"By the way, is it just me or does Strange's beard, look like he chopped off a Squirrel's tail and glued it to his face?" He asked her.

Kate thought for a moment, she then titled her head slightly, and let out a small amount of laughter. "Ah, now that I've got a mental image, it kind of does." She replied to him.

AAAAAAAAAAAA

As it was nearing lunch time, at least for her, Alicia had decided to make herself a sandwich. As she entered the kitchen area, she found M staring at, or perhaps he was glaring at a jar of peanut butter. A jar of peanut butter with the entire top half of it ripped off.

"I was only trying to open it." M said to her, causing Alicia to give him an incredulous look.

"Does this happen often?" She asked him after a moment of silence, and then seeing him nod. "You ever think you're using too much pressure then?" She asked him.

M for a moment gave her a look that said, 'I know' to her. Alicia got to work on her own lunch, but still spoke with the red haired boy as she did so.

"You know the problem is your terrified of yourself. That's never a good thing, especially for people...like us." Alicia said to M.

"See this fear, whatever reason you have it, it means that you don't have any real control over your powers, because you fear using them, and as a result, you can't tell the difference between how much force to punch someone with, and how much force to open a jar of peanut butter with."

Alicia paused for a moment, as she cut her sandwich.

"Here's the thing though, eventually you're going to run into someone who is more powerful than you, and wants to kill you. In the event of that happening, I seriously hope, you overcome whatever mental block you have, because in the field it's a liability." She explained to him.

Having made her sandwich, and feeling that she at least tried to help the redhead, Alicia left the kitchen, to go and enjoy her meal in peace.

AAAAAAAAAAAA

"And this a game, that humans enjoy?" Morgan asked as she held the ball in front of her chest. "We..well not all, b..but a lot of us do." Shade said to the Atlantean.

"Its, pre...pretty popular, as a pa...past time, since it's simple." He explained to her.

"So this game is basically, I have to bounce the ball, I can't just run with it, and the goal is to shoot it through the net? And whoever does this the most times is the winner?" She asked Shade.

Morgan was actually quite delighted to learn new things about Earth, so this was a nice experience for her. "Ba...basically." Shade said in reply to her.

"Then let's play." Morgan said to him, as she began to dribble the ball. Since Shade had more experience in the game, he decided to go ahead, and take it easy on her.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It had been a long morning for William. He had faithfully searched every area that his client had given to him, and he came up with a lot of interesting finds. Finds that he was certain Thomas would be interested in hearing about.

He wiped dirt from his jacket, and flicked a bug from his hair, and then gave the hero a call.

"Hello, it's William."

"I have found everything I could possibly find, and I,

Ich glaube, ich habe entdeckt Gold!...My apologies, I became excited. I found something, really interesting." William said in a much more deadpan tone.

"Ah yes, meeting, meeting of course. Will it be just you or the entire team?" William waited for the Thomas to respond on the other end.

"Hmm a public location? What about the East-Prairie Mall?" He asked. "Alright, then I'll meet you in the food court." William then hung up the phone, and headed for their meeting location.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Thomas called all of the team members into the living room, to explain to them what they would be doing. "Alright I just got word back from our hired P.I."

He told the group before himself. "Like the vegetable pea? Or does he pee in his eyes?" Emerald asked making a joke out of the shortening of the name.

Thomas briefly gave him a "seriously?" look, before moving on. "We're going to the East-Prairie Mall. I will be meeting William personally. The rest of you will be in the area, on patrol in the event that anything goes down. I'd prefer that we come in a little at a time, we don't want to arouse suspicion, or give old guards a heart attack, when 10 teenagers, an age group with a bad repetition, unfortunately, all decide to walk into a single place together." Thomas epxlained to them.

The others briefly gave a few nods, and "Okay's" showing that they were fine with his choice. and rules on the matter.

AAAAAAAAA

William sat down, waiting for Thomas to arrive, it had been five minuets, thus far. Then he saw him, the brown haired young man approached the table, as William stood up, in order to be polite, and shake hands with him.

"Ah, it's nice to see you, I wasn't sure how long I'd be waiting." William said to the young man.

"Well I'm here now, so what'd you find out?" Thomas asked of the detective.

William gave a broad smile, like a child whose pockets were filled with candy. "Well first your hunch about a power source in the old hospital was correct, only it was not a singular source, such a generator. At least not entirely."

Willaim reached into his coat pocket, and produced, a small vial which the very bottom of appeared to be covered in gray dust.

"I found a power source, but that in there, is a small piece of what kept the building running. Nanomachines, that small amount of dust right there, carries, potentially millions of them." William said to Thomas, who now seemed more amazed at the small vial.

"Do they have other functions?" Thomas asked the blonde haired man.

"Incredibly they don't. They have no artificial intelligence, or any such thing, or even thinking capability based upon my tests. They simply collect energy, and release it, accordingly in order to provide power." William told him.

"The only weird thing, I noticed was the potential to cause mutations, based on an energy signature they gave off, though being microscopic in size, it's unlikely that they would be able to do so." Thomas was quick to reply to that one.

"Not unless, someone utilized a mass production unit of them to achieve it...damn" Thomas was suddenly hit with a new thought. "So, um what else did you find?" Thomas asked as he wanted to learn what he could, before leaving.

"Ah yes, I also did some blood testing, very interesting stuff. You see the samples I took did not match any know blood types in existence, either human or animal." Willaim said to Thomas with a light grin on his face.

This knowledge only served to worry to Thomas, who now realized that their first mission was potentially something bigger than all of them.


	8. Prototype

(Everyone I am very sorry for taking so much time. I am also sorry for giving so little for such a long wait. I was honestly just out of it. Anyway's say thank you to Reven228, who if he had not talked with me, I probably would not have gotten this up.)

The question on everyone's mind was trying to figure out just what was going on. Now that they knew, they were dealing with alien technology, it only made things more difficult.

Thomas had ordered the rest of the team, to contact a list of alien heroes to see what they could come up with. They had found nothing. It was not; Martian, Kryptonian, Daxamite, Apokaliptian, no one who was an alien, identified the technology as being of their home planet.

The team had a movie going in the background, it was supposed to be relaxing them, and yet all they could think about was work.

"Oh hold up guys, the killer is about to off the promiscuous, alcoholic, pot smoking, cheerleader, with an attitude problem." Tay said to the rest of the team, a that exact scene played out.

"You know considering the girl who lives in these movies is always a virgin, who never smokes or drinks, it's kind of surprising that the killer doesn't just take a break, and then explain directly to the camera about the dangers of drug use. Which I'm sure ends with; "And remember if you do any drugs, I'll filet you, and stick your head on a pike." Tay said to the others.

"I think it comes down to a challenge thing. Serial killers expect fear, they expect to take on those they can prey on. The instant they go up against someone who can, and will fight back, and even more so actually knows how to, that's when they start losing their edge. It's why even hardened murderers, get uneasy when they see a giant bat shadow overhead." Thomas said to Tay.

As they continued their work a new assignment became available to them. Thomas however was reluctant to stop working on their find.

"Alright, Strix, Emerald, you two are our tech guys, so you sit this one out, M you stay behind to, just in case they need anything, everyone else suit up." Thomas said to the team.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Those who were going boarded the ship. "So what is it this time?" Alicia asked of their leader. Thomas brought up a holographic feed of their enemies.

"Gang bangers outfitted with cybernetics. They've been running rough shed over the Turchin Area."

"What sort of them?" Kate asked Thomas.

"What do you mean?" Thomas asked her in return.

"Are these racial supremacist gang members, such as Neo Nazi's? Are they typical one's like every gang that comes out of a neighborhood with low income and social-economic pressure? Do they actually speak English, or just communicate in slang and hand signs? What are their colors and other identifying factors?" Kate rambled off all of her questions to him.

"Alright, all of those are fair questions. I'll do my best to answer them. Given that the gang employs various people of different ethnicity, I'm fairly certain it isn't a supremacist group, unless they advocate violence to a group that is not based on skin color. They are fairly typical, the Turchin area, is notoriously poor, with a lot of housing projects. They appear to speak English well enough, though like all gangs they have their gang signs, as well as the majority of them being uneducated, and so while they know the words, they are unable to put them together in a coherent fashion. Their primary colors are black and orange, and their common symbol is a demonic, rat looking thing."

"Why the interest gangs?" Thomas asked her, finding the whole thing a bit curious.

"I had a bad run in with a gang once, it's in the past now, and all of them were lined up an executed by a cop who went off the deep end." Kate explained to the group aboard the ship.

"The King, he often speaks highly of this land, but in Atlantis we do not have these gangs, just terrorists like Black Manta. I also thought there was some form of wage check in balance to ensure that everyone had enough." Morgan said to her surface companions.

"Unfortunately it's not that simple. See in your world, dictatorship, and by all technicality it is, it works for you. Aquaman is a great guy, I had the privilege of working with him a few times. Here on the surface however, when one man gets a lot of power, we humans tend to go drunk with it. You see Aquaman is your king, but he does not place himself above you, the way human kings, and dictators often put themselves above those in their land. Now as for the phrase enough to get by, that's the problem. It's just enough to get by, not enough to live comfortably." Thomas explained to the Atlantean.

"Alright we're touching down a hot spot, everyone be selective, and be quick." Thomas said as the ship began to touch down, on a building overlooking gang warfare.

"So you mean disable one, and then try to get the rest before they most likely run off." Alicia said to Thomas.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"The structure of the DNA is a hybrid, it's like something found in plants, and microscopic organisms, thoughts?" Emerald asked of Strix who was working across from him.

"Perhaps a viral strain?" Strix suggested to him.

"Could be, it does seem to target host body cells, but the genetic make up seems off." Emerald replied to her.

"Hold on, we've got a message, odd it's on the emergency frequency, do we listen or wait for Thomas?...Alright it's an emergency apparently we'll listen and save the message." Emerald said asking, and then answering his own question.

The message brought up a holographic display of William Von Hammer.

"Thomas, anyone, I don't know if you'll get this in time. I've had to go into hiding. I needed a safe place, because they came looking for me." Whatever "they" were seemed to have made William frightened.

The hologram of him pulled out a vial of blue liquid from his jacket.

"This is..." William was unable to finish before a large, spine pierced through his body.

"Ker...ker...

"Sorry Leute, aber es ist zu spät" The message then ended after that. After a moment of silence, Emerald spoke up.

"What was it too late for?" He asked. "Either way, I'm sure everyone else will find this to be interesting, I'll upload a link to the others, and the League." He said to Strix.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

The others who were on the mission were in the middle of a battle, when Thomas received the message. A thug had tried to strike him with brass knuckles, only for Thomas to grab his arm, break it, and then partially burn the metal into his hand.

He then thrusted his bat into the stomach of another thug, while at the same time answering his comm-link.

"What is it?" Thomas asked, while dodging a burst of heat and metal. Thomas then returned fire, with a literal fireball.

"Damn!,...Okay, I suppose it is a start. I can't believe it got the detective killed though, especially since he's apparently the only one who knew what we were looking for."

Thomas used his bat to deflect a projectile. "I'll get back to you later." Thomas said before hanging up.

Thomas then returned to helping the rest of the team in their battle. A stray shot, nearly hit Morgan. Shade however, grabbed onto her, and extended his ability to phase, allowing the shot to pass through.

Tay meanwhile, blasted a force of energy into three thugs, knocking them into a wall. Thomas was almost hit, though Alicia used her telekinetic energy to push him to the side. Thomas nodded at her, to silently show his gratitude.

The battle continued on, for the next several minuets, until the heroes managed to emerge in victory.

"Alright, team let's,..." Thomas noticed a green flashing light on one of the pulse lasers, he felt fairly certain that it was not a bomb, it was reading like a phone did when it had a message. Walking over to the fallen thug, Thomas bent down, and pressed the button on the red weapon. It loaded a holographic image of Professor Hugo Strange.

"Ah I was hoping you would answer this message. By now I assume that all of you are quite worn out. I can assure you that I am doing quite pleasantly. Did you really think you had won? However now's not the time, you have other matters to be concerned with, I've studied your group, let's see how the prototype does, I look forward to watching, you fall. "

The message then ended, just as the door of a warehouse slid up. Emerging from the shadows, came to be either a cyborg, or an advanced android, it was one of those two, but it clearly was not human. The being was humanoid, with gray skin, though in some places it did not have skin, and instead appeared to have tightly, packed, tentacles, and scales.

These areas seemed random, such as two patches on the left arm, a patch of the right shoulders, the right side of the face, and a portion of the stomach. It's chest was barrel chested, and it's legs seemed to bend back at the knees, giving it a slightly hunched stance.

It's feet were similar to those of animals more than humans, being that it was tip-toed with the rest of the foot being upwards, and behind the leg.

Alicia went first, she attempted to use her telekinesis on it, but it seemed to have some form of barrier, to prevent that.

Thomas made flames burst from his hands, and then went for a strike with his bat. The robot proved to be flame proof, and then stopped the attack by grabbing his arm, to avoid the bat strike, and then throwing Thomas into a nearby wall.

Thomas grunted in pain, as he got back up, just in time to see the creature backhanding Tay, who had just avoided an attack.

"Guys, we have to coordinate, we can't attack by ourselves. Everyone center on me." Thomas said to the others.

The robot fired a beam of energy, that the others managed to avoid, and then group on Thomas. The robot turned and began to advance towards them.

"Alright, it can deal with us individually, but all of us at once should be a problem. I noticed that it froze up for it's barrier against Alicia. Alicia use your telekinesis again, Tay, you and I will do a double attack."

The others acted, out Thomas's plan, with Alicia hitting the robot with a blast of telekinetic energy, to which it's barrier rose again.

As this happened, Alicia kept the pressure on, and this allowed Thomas to first get in a hard swing with his bat, against the hard exterior of the robot, while Tay then, flew in with a double fisted, uppercut, and followed it with an energy beam.

The robot decided to switch to them, which was it's mistake as it allowed Alicia to easily rip it in half.

"Well,...he did say it was a prototype." Tay pointed out to the others.

"Which is not good news." Alicia said to him.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Everyone was back at base, and they all had a lot to discuss.

"So how much of a threat is Strange? Is he behind everything going on? Or is he more or less informed by some alien species but not the true threat?" Tay wondered aloud to the others.

"I don't know, but for those of who were on the mission today, we need to get checked for injuries, I'm pretty sure, I tore some arm muscles, and I feel like I injured my shoulder blade, when I got tossed into the wall." Thomas stood up, and he seemed to have trouble standing up erectly, most likely as a result of his wounds.

"So are we just taking a breather?" Emerald asked him.

"No, we need to be on the field, but for now, I'd like to focus more on reconnaissance missions, rather than one's which involve direct contact." Thomas explained to the group, who all seemed to be alright with that.

"Also tech squad. We salvaged parts of our robot that we fought for you two to analyze." Thomas said to Emerald and Strix, as he handed them the salvaged parts.

Thomas then left in order to go to the medical wing of the base.


	9. A Question, and a Rant (Please Look)

Don't worry everyone, still working on the next chapter. I just have a question, and I need to let off steam, about Batman.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Alright my question is to ask if any of you, have acess to a good art program? Of if you're just really good at art? I myself like to draw, but I'm not super at it. I figured if anyone could, I would draw the basic thing of what I wanted, and then you could go over, and improve on it. As in do things like shading, or if you have a fancy computer program, just somehow get the image in there, and make it look all neat, since I am limited to using pencil, and uploading with a cell phone.

AAAAAAAAAAA

Okay, I have a bit to say here. Batman is my favorite hero. Given his popularity, I'm willing to bet, that he's a lot of people's, favorite hero. Now, I understand that a key trait of Batman's is never giving up. However, it's becoming difficult for me to see him as this cool, badass, that even a God-Like being such as Superman has a healthy amount of respect for, when in every major storyline, he either gets beaten/tortured, or someone close to him does. I'm not joking either. Think of every "Major" storyline, either with Batman centrally, or at least involving him.

Knightfall - Gets his back broken, by the biggest coward in all of comics. Apparently in DC Bane means huge pussy.

A Death in the Family - Jason gets murdered.

Black Glove - Family's name tarnished, buried alive, and injected with weapons grade meth.

Court of Owls - Gets beaten multiple times, and tortured for eight days.

I forget which Crisis saga it was, but his own friends mind wipe him, just because he voiced an opinion.

Final Crisis - Mind raped by Darkseid's machine.

His origin story of having his parents gunned down, right in front of him.

The Killing Joke - Barbara gets crippled.

Red Hood - Jason, essentially one of his children, using what he was taught for evil.

Retconned but in one instance Black Mask torture-murdered, Stephanie Brown. It turned out that oh it wasn't really here, after the writers saw how pissed the fans got.

Don't get me wrong, if it's any normal comic, then yeah Batman kicks ass. But it seems like in every major comic, the writers just have to abuse him in some way. Which I really need to rant about that chicken-shit, child molestor, named Bane. Bane's a coward, so naturally he probably preys on children. So Bane, is this big, supposedly has a photographic memory, intelligent, with combat skills, and pumped on his venom. Now, does he perhaps set up cameras, or just follow Batman, and observe his techniques, and memorize them? Does Bane take his balls out of his purse, and fight Batman when he's healthy and prepared? The answer is no. Because Bane, is a coward. Long story short, I think he's a huge coward, but mostly I'm upset because even though Batman has won rematches, he's never really gotten to pummel Bane, and I need Bane to learn that Batman is better than he is. Bane is a Batman character, and the villain is not allowed to be better than the hero, it doesn't work like that. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those obsessed fan types, who thinks Batman must always win. I'm also not saying that I want Batman to just lay into him with a pipe or something. I may despise Bane, but I don't want Batman out of character for it. However Bane even on venom is not so powerful that Batman would not be able to to beat him. So I view it as, Bane by being a huge coward broke Batman's back, and that was on purpose. So why can't they have a rematch and I mean one that counts, Bane's on venom and he takes his balls out of his purse and actually steps up to fight Batman at full peak without wearing him down first, and then jumping him with a goon squad. That might be hard for Bane, since he is a pussy. Anyways though Bane broke his back on purose, now how come they can't have a proper rematch in which by virtue of accident, Batman maybe decks him a bit too hard with an uppercut, and Bane fractures his skull. Outside of killing Bane which goes back into Batman being out of character, I would love for their rematch to be a good one, you know let Bane get some shots in, but ultimatley I want it to end with Batman standing tall while Bane is on the ground in his own blood, broken ribs, fractured skull, cracked neck, punctured lungs, etc.


	10. Happy (Early) Halloween

(You know originally I wanted to post this on Halloween. This Halloween themed chapter. To be honest, I'm not really sure what your characters fear, so I'm mostly going for things that seem generally scary. Along with trying to fit into their personalities. Now as for why I may be late with the next chapter. My friend's house, had an electrical fire, so I'll be helping them, get settled into a new house.)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It was a few nights after, they had met Strange's prototype robot. Most of the team members were asleep, aside from Thomas who felt unable to.

Even with their victory, he knew that they needed more training, because they had almost been torn apart, by an opponent they clearly were not ready for. His wounds had healed by this point into slight bruises, but the responsibility of making sure that his team could face down any threat, that was another matter entirely.

Thomas had tried watching television in order to take his mind off of the ordeal, but it eventually became a mere background noise, drowned out by his own thoughts.

"Trouble sleeping?" Thomas heard a voice ask, causing him to whip around. He had no history of auditory hallucinations, so whoever was there, was real, and he did not recognize the voice either.

It was also apparent that whoever it was, had either very good camouflage, or was flat out invisible.

"Come on now, surely you can grasp the situation. Isn't that what a good leader is supposed to do? Assess the situation, and make a choice of action?" The voice taunted at him. Thomas by this point was standing up, with his bat in hand.

"And what are you going to do with that?" The voice asked, as Thomas looked around for the voice. "Everyone, get in the living room area, we've been compromised." There was no response, causing Thomas to issue another more urgent alert.

"Everyone get down here now!" He shouted over the PA system. There was still no response, and not a single team member showed up. What happened next caused Thomas to question his sanity.

The living room stayed the same, but the area beyond it, began to melt, and it appeared as if mutilated infants were trying to crawl towards him from a pool of blood that had appeared on the floor. There was so much crying, it was too much to bare, and he fell to his knees.

When he opened his eyes, everything looked normal once more. At least that's what he thought. Thomas felt something, on his arm, and looked down. His bat had changed from a bat, into a mass of fleshy tentacles.

Thomas tried to throw it down, but the tentacles, wrapped around his arm, and then began to pierce his flesh, while some of them went into his torso, back, chest, legs, and some even went into his face.

The odd thing was that it was not excruciatingly painful like he thought it would be. Instead the tentacles produced a feeling of dread, and coldness, while also making him numb.

"I imagine you're feeling quite vulnerable right now. How are your team mates supposed to follow a man who can not lead himself out of even the most simple of challenges?" "In fact let's ask them how they feel."

The voice then stopped, and Thomas bore witness to a new scene. This time, it was of his team members. They were all, being tortured, and begging Thomas to save them, while also asking why he let them down.

Thomas watched as they were beaten, stabbed, burned, even sodomized. "I'm..sorry." Thomas said to them. "Damnit! Stop,...I made a mistake, I'm sorry." He said sinking to his knees, and putting his head into his hands.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Morgan had been feeling peckish, so she had gotten out of bed, in order to acquire a late night snack. The Atlantean went to the kitchen, for a moment peeking into the living room. The light was on, but she did not see anyone in there.

Morgan opened the refrigerator, and then did a double take, at what she saw. The entire fridge was filled with water, not regular water, but more like a liquid gel. Morgan tilted her head in curiosity, and the slowly reached a hand up to touch it.

The water responded to her touch, by performing an ear splitting scream, while also shocking her. Morgan quickly recoiled, now being more alarmed. The water poured out of the fridge, soaking the floor, and then from the water, beings began to rise from it.

These people were mixed. There were some Atlanteans, and others who were human. They both formed a line on each side of her.

"You don't belong here freak." One of the humans said throwing a rock at her head. Morgan went over to the Atlantean line, not noticing their looks of malice. When she got there, backing into them, the Atlanteans put her in a strangle hold, with a wire around her throat.

"You turn your back on us, and think we'll welcome you?" They asked her. Suddenly they all just vanished, leaving Morgan both afraid an confused.

"Troubling, isn't it? To know that you're alone." A cold voice, seemingly from nowhere said to her.

"Wh..who's there?" She asked hesitantly as she could see who was speaking.

"You don't need to know who I am, besides it wouldn't matter, since you have no home. The people here think you're a freak, and you know it. Oh but you turned your back on Atlantis, do you really deserve to call it your home?" The voice asked, as Morgan became surrounded by darkness.

"I'll leave you alone, after all it's something you should be used to feeling."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Shade was in his room, watching television, from half seated, position on his bed. It was kind of awkward for him. When his powers had first emerged it took a lot of concentration to not fall through whatever he touched or got on.

The television blinked out for a moment, and Shade was shocked for a moment, as he believed that he saw a brief flash of a dog with a lady's head, having sex with a dead horse. It was very brief, but the image was still fresh in his mind.

The bed then began to turn into a goop like texture, pulling his arms, and legs into it. Shade struggled for a moment, before using his power to phase out of the bed.

"What in the world is going on?" He asked himself, as his bed now seemed to be in normal condition. Shade was about to walk back over to the bed, when he found himself trapped.

A glass box, that came from seemingly nowhere had trapped him.

"You can go through walls. Nothing traps you does it? You can't experience being closed in, because when things get tight, you can just step out of them." Shade heard a voice say.

"Who's there?" Shade asked the voice.

"Let's see you get out of this." As soon as the voice said that, sand began to drop from the top of the box. Shade attempted to exit, however he found that he could not. His powers had been rendered useless.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Alicia had been trying to get a good night's sleep, but she kept being interrupted. She had found the perfect way to sleep, her body felt fully relaxed, but she kept hearing what sounding like heavy breathing.

Then she felt her body shaking, as if the entire base had been hit by an earthquake. She quickly sat up, and that is when Alicia first noticed that things were clearly off kilter.

Her bed was gigantic, it was like she had been hit by a shrink ray. In addition it did not look like her room, but that of a much younger, and much girlier girl.

The wallpaper was pink, pictures of fairies and princess's adorned the walls, along with various stuffed animals.

"Feeling small?" Alicia heard a male voice ask of her. "Come out, and I'll show you how small I feel." Alicia responded while looking around.

"Threatening those superior to you has no effect." The voice said in a clear taunt, causing Alicia to grit her teeth.

"You enjoy toying with your opponent's, let's see how you like it." After this the voice went away, just as the door opened.

Alicia was greeted by a girl of about five years of age. Due to her shrunken form, the child was a literal giant to her.

"Hi Ms. Fairy Princess, we're going to have lots of fun, today!" The girl said roughly grabbing Alicia and holding the her in a tight grip. She then began to run around with her hand up, apparently pretending that Alicia was perhaps Superman or some other flying hero.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Tay could have sworn that he had just exited his room for a quick bathroom break. He had no clue as to why he was walking down a street, or as to how he had gotten there.

"It's him! Run!" He heard a woman say, and noticed that everyone was regarding him with fear.

"Whoa, calm down, just...calm down, I'm not going to hurt anyone." Tay tried to say to them. His pleas fell upon deaf ears, as the people scattered from his presence. Then without warning, Tay fired a burst of energy tearing a hole through an elderly man.

The people reacted, with screams of terror. "What the!? I didn't...I'm so sorry, but..." He found himself at a loss for words as he heard someone call him a monster.

"Lose something?" Tay heard a voice ask, and spun around to face whoever it was. He did not see anyone but he did see his cap.

"No" Tay said in a hushed voice, as beams shot forth from his eyes, and destroyed a small building. Tay did not wish to harm anyone, but his body, his powers they were reacting without his control.

He closed his eyes, not wishing to see the destruction, but he could still clearly hear their screams. He was able to feel blood splatter across his face, as his body fired another round of energy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Leeann was spending her night playing a video game. It was a nice way for her to just relax, and she did not have to move from the comfortable position she was enjoying, as she could shape shift her arms or other body parts in case there was something she needed to grab that was out of reach.

The volume was starting to get a little too high, and she morphed a tentacle from her arm to grab the remote. Only she was unable to do so.

Looking over at her arm, Leeann recoiled in shock as her arm had been filleted at the elbow, with bits of flesh hanging off, and several leeches upon it.

"What the!? She said pulling her arm back quickly, as it shifted to it's normal form. Her stomach then felt strange, and painful, as she doubled over. Leeann held her stomach, and felt it moving under her hands.

Then her torso shape shifted, a being resembling a child came out of her stomach, with a large, fanged mouth, but no eyes or nose.

Leeann watched as the creature's mouth opened, revealing a long tongue, which gave her face a few licks. Then the child creature that had formed from her gut, took on the appearance of a third degree burn victim, before turning to ash.

The bed changed to a goo, causing Leeann to fall into it.

"With a power like yours, you can always bypass any security. No one would know the real you. But what if your world was as fake as you are?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

M knew that he was dreaming. It was easy to deduce that, but he was unable to control it. He was trapped in a black void, watching the world as if through a window.

In that world he saw himself, and what he could have become.

"Isn't that what you want? To see the humans that deep down you feel are insects, being crushed under your heel?"

M heard the voice taunting at him. In the other world that he watched, he saw himself, subjugating the humans, leading an army of his race, his real race against them, and slaughtering them in mass.

"No" M responded to the voice. As he said this, he saw his other self decapitate a woman by back handing her.

"Pathetic. Those people hate, and fear you. They look at you and see power they could never hope to have, and your too stubborn to admit that you think of them all as insects."

Still he witnessed his other self committing horrific atrocities. "I guess I'll leave you here to look at your real self, and remind you of what you feel in your heart."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Kate looked around herself, as she was back home. She could hear her brother calling her name, and she knew that it was too good to be true.

Kate's brother was dead, murdered by gang members. The scenery changed, and she saw that fateful day in question. Her brother getting beaten, and then stabbed, and left to bleed out.

Kate knew there was nothing she could do, and watched the scene change again, this time seeing a corrupt officer, line up and shoot the gang members in question.

"How terrible, losing your brother, and being stripped of a chance at revenge." Kate for a moment considered responding, but instead she sat down, and concentrated.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a yellow skinned man. "There you are." Kate said to him, causing the man to react with shock.

"What!? How can you see me?" He asked her.

"Those far better than you have tried to enter my mind before." Kate said to him.

"Heh...well it doesn't matter, I have enough information on all of you after accessing your memories, and besides your friend's are not as mentally adept as you are." He said in a gloating voice.

"We'll see about that." Kate said, as she concentrated once more.

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

When she opened her eyes, she saw Thomas looking very downtrodden, as warped versions of the other team members including herself, were being tortured while telling him that it was his fault.

Kate quickly came to his aid, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Thomas, none of this real, don't listen to them." She said to him.

"Why? They're telling the truth, I'm not fit to be a leader, I'll end up getting all of you killed." He said without looking at her.

"That's not true, besides just because you were unprepared once doesn't mean it's the end of the world. That's part of being a leader, being able to adapt. So we got a little caught off guard, we're still here, that proves that your a good leader." Kate told him.

"Do you mean that?" Thomas asked her, still in a melancholic state though with a small amount of hope in his voice.

"Of course, I meant every word, you're a good leader, and the right one for this team. We all agreed to follow you, now be a leader, and set the example." Kate told him.

The pep talk was enough to get Thomas a little fired up, and give him the courage to stand up. The warped team members evaporated, and the room returned to normal.

"Thanks, Kate." Thomas said to her with a slight nod. "Yeah, now come on, we have to rescue the others." Kate told him.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Kate and Thomas arrived to see the apparitions of Humans, and Atlanteans ostracizing Morgan. They were telling her that she had no home. That she did not belong anywhere.

"Morgan! Come over here, those things are wrong. You do have a home, it's here with us, you're a member of our family." Thomas said to the Atlantean.

Morgan's face broke into a smile with near child like joy at receiving acceptance. She quickly went to Thomas and Kate, who welcomed her with open arms.

"If I had any problems with you, I would've been up front on day one about it. Don't ever think that I would discriminate because of who or what someone is." Thomas told her.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The three members then entered Shade's dream, and broke him out of his glass prison. Shade was a bit shaken up, but no worse for the wear, as the sand spilled out on the floor. Morgan helped him too his feet, which he thanked her for. There was no time to waste, as they set out to rescue the others.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The next area they entered looked like downtown, they could hear a lot of people screaming, as well as hear explosions.

"Who's dream is this?" Morgan asked as she looked around.

"Well, I only know two of us, capable of producing explosions, so it's either M or Tay." Thomas responded to her. They walked through the city, going towards the explosions. They came across Tay, their youngest member was crouched down, as energy fired randomly from his body.

"Tay!, Tay!...Can you hear me!?" Thomas shouted at him. Tay lifted his head up, looking over at them. His eyes were glowing with energy.

"Please, get out of here. My cap, I can't control my powers without it." Tay said to them.

"You can, you can control them, this is a dream, the laws of the real world don't apply here." Thomas tried to tell him, as a beam of energy was shot over his head.

"No, I need it!" Tay yelled back. Thomas looked at the others for a moment, and then he had an idea.

"Tay you have your cap, trust me, reach up on your head and feel it for yourself!" Thomas shouted to him. He was trying to make Tay believe that he had his cap, which would then result in him actually having it, since his dream would conform to his desires.

"How do I know? I can't feel it." Tay said to him.

"Believe that it's there and it will be." Thomas told him. He watched as Tay took a breath, and reached upwards, all of them saw the cap appear on his head, just as his hand made contact, and the energy stopped.

"Wow!, How'd you know?" Tay asked his leader. "I just had a feeling, now come on, we've got others to rescue." Thomas said back to him.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

In the next place, they were in a room, Leeann's to be precise. She seemed to have been shape shifting uncontrollably.

"Hold on guys." Kate said as she mentally concentrated. She contacted a part in Leeann's mind that controlled her identity, and then helped her set it right. Leeann breathed heavily, as she heaved out a thank you to Kate.

"You're welcome, now...that's strange." Kate said first to Leeann, and then the second part to herself.

"What is?" Thomas asked her. "There's only one dreamer left, there were two, but it seems like one of them managed to get out of it two of us have been left unaffected, but why?" Kate asked the others.

"Don't worry, we'll find out. A friend of mine told me that a good leader adapts." Thomas said to her, while putting a hand on her shoulder.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Those who had been affected by the nightmares, entered the final dream. This one was much darker than the others. They saw bodies, a lot of them, just on the streets, strung up from light poles, everywhere.

"Well this looks, horrible." Shade said as he looked around at the carnage. "Humans, surrender." They looked over to see, aliens, or perhaps genetic monsters approaching them.

They had a sleek metallic design to their bodies. Whatever they were, the team members didn't know. One of them fired a burst of heat energy, at the team from it's palm.

"That was heat, not concussive." Thomas said to the others.

"Why is that important right now!? Kate asked in an exasperated tone, as they dodged another attack.

"Only one of us uses, energy that produces high levels of heat." Thomas said to back to her. "Oh, so it's M then." Tay said figuring it out.

"Wait a minute, M's an alien?" Tay asked them. "Well that or this is how he pictures his dark side in tangible form." Thomas replied to Tay's question.

"Oh, say instead of wasting time, can't we just think we'll find him, and bring him to us?" Tay asked, the others who seemed to think that it was a good idea.

They all closed their eyes, and when they opened them, they were in a movie theater, with only one other person being there. M was sitting in the middle row, watching the horror on the screen.

"Well that's enough that, Tay blast the screen." Thomas said to the red capped young man. Tay nodded and shot a blast of energy, the resulting destroyed screen, snapped M out of the trance he had been in.

"Hmm? Oh, guys, what's going on?" M asked them. Kate warped the world into the training room, and revealed their enemy to them.

"Welcome to the training room." Kate said to the yellow man. "Everyone this is who has been trying to screw with our minds." Kate said to them.

"Well then I think it's time for a little payback." Tay said as he looked at their adversary. "Heh, you hero types don't kill, what are you going to do?" He asked them.

"You're right we don't kill while we're awake, in the real world. Which you know when dealing with the same criminals again and again, that sort of wears on a person. So, I think being that this is a dream, we're entitled to let off a little bit of pent up frustration." Thomas said to the enemy.

"Wh..what are you talking about?" The yellow man stammered at them. "You're about to have a nightmare." Kate told him.

The yellow man watched as the room changed, the floor becoming blood, as tentacles with spikes to them wrapped around his arms and legs, piercing his flesh, as the heroes he had taunted changed into monsters. The only thing left in the darkness was the sound of his screams.


End file.
